The World Cup has led to many displays of patriotism from European visitors to the United States. The Scottish “Tartan Army” marched into Florida behind a wall of bagpipes. Norwegians have carried their “Viking row” chant through stadium concourses, airport escalators, and Times Square.
A strong country must produce those willing to sacrifice for its safety, and in this respect, Europe is in worse shape than we are, despite displays of national pride.
Strikingly, our visitors say they feel freer to show pride in their own countries here, having seen Americans do it without apology. As one German put it: “I respect how proud Americans are of their country, unimaginable back home in Germany.”
We’d better be prouder than the Germans: Only about 500 German 18-year-olds signed up for the military after 300,000 were contacted by mail and follow-up. Germany is now trying to find more effective ways of military recruitment, with some believing that conscription will ultimately be necessary to meet military needs.
That said, a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute found a similar drop in patriotism here at home: Just 51% of Americans call themselves very or extremely proud to be American, down from 82% in 2013. While 82% of Republicans are very proud, only 28% of Democrats are, with independents falling in the middle.
It gets sharper when you slice by age. Two-thirds of those over 65 are proud, while only about one-third of those aged 18-29 are. We are not looking at a society that’s uniformly less patriotic. We’re looking at one generation handing the next a country it never really taught them to love. And in too many classrooms, that failure to teach has not been an accident. It has been the lesson plan.
One sign of this failure that should really alarm us is how casually our newest leaders treat the flag—and how little it costs them.
In New York’s 13th District, democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier toppled a five-term incumbent this month despite writing that she “wiped my hand on the American flag” and calling the country “a f—–g disgrace.” In Lynnwood, Washington, a councilwoman said she “would not raise an American flag” at her own house and pushed to take down a 27-flag civic display. In Sacramento, a councilwoman now running for Congress routinely turns her back during the pledge.
None of this behavior has disqualified them in voters’ minds—in fact, it may have helped.
When contempt for the flag is no longer a deal-breaker for a meaningful share of voters, that’s not a story about three politicians. It’s a story about us.
That story has authors, and a good many of them stand at the front of a classroom. For two generations, a determined faction on the hard left has worked to indict and disparage our country. It has understood, better than we have, that the surest way to kill a love is to reach people before it forms.
Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” which has sold millions of copies, renders the American story as little more than an unbroken chain of theft, racism, and exploitation, and it is a fixture in schools coast to coast. It is often assigned as if it were settled fact rather than the polemic Zinn freely admitted it was.
Its heir, the 1619 Project, was built to be pushed into K-12 classrooms, recasting the very founding as a defense of slavery and describing racism as something woven into the nation’s DNA. An entire organization, the Zinn Education Project, exists to hand this material to teachers and coach them to teach “outside the textbook.”
Surely most teachers love this country and want their students to love it too, and we owe them our thanks. But the radicals are organized, well-funded, and patient. A rising generation has been taught to be ashamed of its inheritance before it was ever given the chance to be grateful for it.
The councilwoman who wipes her hand on the flag did not invent that contempt. Somewhere, years ago, she was assigned it. And somewhere, right now, someone is grading the homework of another child never given the chance to love his nation.
We must be vigilant in our schools, but the most direct path to kindling patriotism is in the early years at home.
Researcher George Barna’s decades of work on childhood worldview formation found that children begin developing their basic outlook on life as young as 15 months old, and that “by the age of 13, it’s almost completely in place” for the rest of their lives. Barna’s research speaks directly to religious worldview rather than patriotism, but it is clear the heart’s deepest attachments are formed early, while we’re not watching closely, and they harden fast.
But young children don’t need lectures to fall in love with America; they need stories. So, give them stories!
Matthew Mehan, a professor at Hillsdale College, just published “The American Book of Fables.” In the tradition of Aesop, it reimagines America’s animals and landscapes as the setting for tales about the Declaration of Independence alongside American history, geography, and wildlife. There are sections “for Littles, Middles, and Bigs,” so a toddler and a teenager can sit at the same table and both find something that sticks.
Patriotism is fostered by stories good enough that a child asks to hear them twice.
Tell the great stories of American heroes early and often, not so much as facts to memorize but as drama to feel: Valley Forge; Little Round Top; the Battle of the Bulge; the Birmingham bus boycott; the first responders of 9/11; and the signers of our Declaration who pledged their lives, fortunes, and their sacred honor.
At 250, we must rededicate ourselves to telling our stories. And we must make sure ours are louder, truer, and more often told.
If European soccer fans can find things to love about our country, surely we can, too.
